Sabotage (17 page)

She stood as soon as Grant entered and walked over to him stiffly with a look of disdain and discomfort that made it look like she was walking in high heels for the very first time. Grant knew she thought he should have been fired for his transgressions, but he really couldn’t figure out why she still disdained him so. After all, his mistakes directly led to her being put in the supervisor position she now had. They lost track of each other for a while, and then, after he was banished to the podunk Missouri outpost, she ended up there too. For her, it was less ignominy. She came from Missouri, and it was a step up, but it made it awkward for both of them.

He learned a lot over the last two years—what to let go of and that what Mandy thought of him really mattered very little. However, in this situation, how she processed the information would directly impact his ability to continue on the case.

He told Naseem to wait, handcuffed behind his back, in the car. Now, he second-guessed his impromptu meeting with Naseem, and he hoped he hadn’t overplayed his hand. He didn’t think Naseem would say anything. He hoped he was right. He motioned Mandy to follow him outside, where he could keep Naseem in his sights.

Mandy took a look at this man. His gaze was hard as he looked right at her. She tried to hold his eyes but finally looked away. She turned awkwardly to Grant and told him she secured a room off of the security entrance. She would meet both of them around the side of the building. Grant took Naseem out of the car, pulled on the handcuffs, and walked him around the corner.

“Be a good boy,” were the only words he could think to say.

Naseem didn’t respond.

Miller didn’t know if this was good or bad. They walked into the small, dark room Mandy reserved for them.

“This is Naseem Amin.” Grant made the introduction as matter-of-factly as possible.

Mandy nodded professionally and said nothing. She did not extend her hand. Naseem got the message.

She turned quickly to Grant, trying to keep control of this crazy situation. She decided she would ignore the presidential phone call unless he brought it up.

“How does all of this tie in to Caitlin?”

Grant shook his head. “I don’t even know. This latest detail is news to me. I’m waiting on Mr. Amin to enlighten both of us.”

Mandy turned to him. “Mr. Amin?”

Naseem’s jaw clenched. He looked down at his lap for a moment and then spoke.

“Yankee never let me in on much of his overarching plan. I was in charge of three main items: logistics regarding planned targets, finding a shipping route that would allow us to get explosives into the distribution chain as we needed, and doing a little extra with the targets if I was given the impression they were more … important.”

“What were the important targets?”

“Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, St. Louis, and Lake of the Ozarks.”

Mandy bit her lip. “Lake of the Fucking Ozarks. What the hell? The first three, absolutely. That would generate the most publicity. Why the last two?”

“To me, the last one seems to be the easiest and also the most closely related to what he wanted to do. Yankee said he wanted Middle America to fear as well. That it wasn’t just the big cities that we were going to hit. That made sense at the time, but now I realize it was to make sure that I was dead—put me on a floating pile of plastic explosives and boat fuel.”

“But he knew you wanted to die. That was why you were there.”

“Maybe he saw something in me that I didn’t see myself. I left the boat to decide if I could do this to the others.”

“I’m wondering if you left because you didn’t know if you could do it to yourself.”

She let the words hang. They served their desired effect.

“How did you survive?” She knew the answer but wanted to hear it from him.

“I was told that the attack was to be two hours later. He texted me, asked if I was in place, then asked me to send pictures. I did. I was having serious reservations by this point and took the Jet Ski out to decide what to do.”

“Serious reservations,” Mandy spat.

Naseem remained unfazed.

She had tried, but she couldn’t break him, not in a million years.

He rallied. “St. Louis and Los Angeles were the only ones with specific targets. Yankee wanted to make sure that we got at least one big entertainment name. Pal Joey wasn’t exactly household, but he was easy and comparatively cheap. In St. Louis, I was told to kill Grant Miller and was given all resources necessary to make it happen.” Naseem looked at Grant.

Grant stared ahead. He knew this was a possibility since Caitlin called. But it struck him differently to hear it. He was involved in this but had no idea how.

“Why?”

“I was never told a specific reason why.”

Grant interjected. “I assume it was because of Caitlin.”

Both Naseem and Mandy stared at him. He wished he hadn’t said anything.

“Why an hour later? Why not the first round?”

“Remember, the idea, at least what he told me, was to paralyze the country. Stagger the attacks. Keep people anticipating bad news. I assume he thought that all agents would be back in the office after the first attack. Give him enough time to get back from lunch and then take him out in Round Two.”

Mandy’s face remained stony. “Okay, I’ll buy that. But why warn him? Don’t you still hate America?”

“I hate you.” He pointed at her “And I hate him,” he glared at Miller but held his tongue about their run-in. “I hate your liberty and your privilege. I hate your race and your religion. But I don’t hate you as much as I now hate him. All of a sudden, if Yankee wanted Grant dead, I wanted him alive.”

T
he concierge at the MGM Grand did his job well. Britt tipped him a thousand dollars in cash and then gave him the man nod, the universal signal he would take it from here.

He was in the most opulent suite in the hotel with floor to ceiling windows and a full view of the man-made money pit that was the Vegas strip. He was there for half an hour, pouring a drink, watching his masterpiece, and mainly trying to take his mind off of the madness and think solely about the fun about to arrive.

Then they arrived. And oh, the man could score. There were four women, all absolute perfection.

Priscilla was a striking blond, tall with severe and short hair that made her look more distant and therefore more appealing.
Only a real man could bring her out of that shell
, Britt thought. She had surgically enhanced breasts that held up without a bra underneath her sheer shirt. She was his favorite.

Holly was tall but not like Priscilla. She had shiny black hair with bangs, not much in the way of breasts, but a shapely ass that begged to be spanked.

Jilly and Tilly were obviously related, a taboo that also spoke to Britt’s heart. They were brunette and would turn heads anywhere they went.

Priscilla came over and kissed the nape of his neck, moving her lips up to let him feel her breath in his ear. She turned and kissed him and made a subtle move with her hand down to his groin. He could feel her hand there, but he might as well have been paralyzed. The feeling didn’t arouse him. It didn’t make him the least bit erect.

He thought of Caitlin.
Why wasn’t she there?

He thought of all the years Grant Fucking Miller cost him.

He thought about the terror and hilarity and triumph in his killings today.

He thought about the same things, and they all took his mind from these very beautiful women, taking him to a zone where no erection could, or would, or should ever occur.

He breathed like a sophomore girl about to have a panic attack and tried to pretend this was normal. He was a stud who saw it all and would have to be coaxed to even be attracted to them. He wondered if they bought it. He brought all four to sit with him on the bed. The ladies undressed and he helped. Holly’s body, even without large breasts, was a wonder—smooth and perfect with a high, pert ass that any man would have killed for. Britt put on some Al Green—who couldn’t get laid listening to Al Green—and Al hit his falsetto and urged them to call Al and come back home.

The ladies kissed and licked on each other in the forced way they did when they believed men wanted to see this. Jilly and Priscilla even seemed to like it.

Block it out. Block it out. Block out all this noise! Then he felt his cell phone go off. The only one he left on. He was relieved. He had a reasonable out. His breathing started to slow.

It was either Red, or Tony, or on the off chance Caitlin, but he knew instinctively it wasn’t her. He pulled the phone out of his pants and saw it was Tony. This was either great news or very bad news.

“Ladies, I am sorry but I need to take this call,” he said as if he were leaving a business meeting.

Priscilla, clearly the ringleader, said “Don’t worry, baby. Go do your thing. We’ll be doing ours. We’ll be waiting for you to get back.”

Hopefully Tony found her. His vision blurred. Maybe he had her already. Surely he did. Then he was sure he’d be able to pleasure his new friends. He was sure of it.

T
he call from St. Louis came in to Vanessa Jones. She was still at her desk, alone in her room, just a few doors from the Oval Office. The office had all of the gravitas of the White House—large and important. It was where Haldeman helped Nixon dig his own grave, where parts of the Iran-Contra scandal were planned, and where the dirty work emanated. Jones didn’t operate in that way. She saw her job as the president’s bulldog, but she wasn’t going to risk her own skin for anyone. To his credit, Alex Morgan never asked her to.

She picked up the cordless phone and walked to the window. It was important if they routed it to her at this time. She hit the green button and stretched. She felt tired and caged.

She could tell that Mandy LaPierre, her new best friend from the Midwest, did not like delivering the news. Chains of command be damned. Vanessa told her to call directly with any important information. Mandy’s new orders were to ignore her superiors and report directly to her. Vanessa wanted to speak to whomever actually had any information, and she wanted it quickly to keep this investigation going.

“Well that was quick.”

“Bad news travels fast.”

“What’s up?” Jones had the ability to sound like the friend you were having coffee with. It endeared her to secretaries and heads of state alike. She never lost her common touch.

“Well, ma’am, it looks like Grant Miller’s girlfriend was a confidante of our prime suspect.”

This information made its way onto Vanessa’s iPhone a few minutes earlier, right after the president spoke with Grant. This was shocking and beyond anything she wanted to tell the president. She had to consider if it had bigger ramifications than just this matter. Had the FBI been harboring a traitor, or had Grant’s protestations of innocence, half-hearted as they were, been true? She decided she would wait a while before giving him this news.

“I heard that a few minutes ago. What does it mean? Confidante? Is that what they call it now? Sounds more like concubine to me.”

“This information comes from Mr. Miller and from his informant. I don’t have hard corroboration outside of the interrogation room.”

“I don’t need corroboration at this point. I need information. I need to know ahead of time, so I can keep the president from going down a blind alley. Have you met Mr. Amin?” Mr. Amin sounded strange to say.

Mandy paused, having considered this herself. “I met him. He seems … credible. Maybe too much so. Maybe he’s just saying what we want to hear. At times, he seems angry and truly interested in seeing Yankee—that’s his name for him—brought down. Sometimes it seems like he catches himself trying to save his own skin. Maybe this is natural. Maybe he’s just playing all angles, just like everyone else.”

“What’s your hunch?”

“What else do we have to go on? I left him every opportunity to abandon his story, and he didn’t. He really does seem to have saved some lives.”